Wolfgang Schäuble: Easing Greece’s debt won’t help

Adjusting Greece’s debt will bring about undesired results according German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble. “The country won’t have problems servicing its debt in the next ten years,” he said.

After allegedly giving Barack Obama cold treatment for the statement he made during his Athens visit when he said “Now is the right time to ease Greece’s debt,” Mr. Schäuble responded emphatically at a bank conference in Frankfurt: “Cutting Greece’s debt will not help Greece. The country will not have problems servicing its debt in the next ten years,” he insisted, according to Reuters.

He added: “Greece still hasn’t done enough with reforms in its administration, its labor law and its domestic market, which could have led to its economic growth. Debt relief won’t help. It will do the opposite.”

Greece has been bailed out three times by the EU, the ECB and the IMF, but the next bailout package could amount to as much as 86 billion euros. Prime minister Alexis Tsipras has asked for debt relief in order to boost the economy, which has been shrinking continuously for the last seven years.